have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. Instead of sending mercenaries, Urban II decided to issue a call to every Christian man in the west. Urban II had soldiers to spare–he was not only the head of the Christian church, but the political ruler of the Papal States, a chunk of land which had been given to the church bit by bit over the past 300 years by various rulers of Italy–and the Papal States had its own army. So he sent a message to Pope Urban II, in Rome, asking for mercenaries to help him push the Turkish threat back. They conquered a good deal of Byzantine land in Asia Minor in 1077 they took the city of Jerusalem away from the Fatimids, the Islamic dynasty that ruled Egypt and by 1095 Alexius was seriously worried. About fifty years before, they had united together into a coalition–and their unified power had grown. The Turks were wandering tribes, originally from central Asia, who had been filtering westward for centuries. And Alexius Komnenos was alarmed by the gathering power of the Ottoman Turks over to his east. Here’s a quick review: Just before the First Crusade, the Greek-speaking Christian empire of Byzantium was under the rule of the emperor Alexius Komnenos. Those cracks had to widen and fracture apart before Renaissance humanism could establish new loyalties. The First Crusade fatally cracked the accepted Western consensus that the cause of Christ was the highest and most paramount loyalty on earth. You might think the First Crusade succeeded–it did, after all, recapture Jerusalem.īut it failed in another drastic way. To properly set the stage for the Renaissance, we need to start with the failure of the First Crusade (1095-1099). What events began to create something new in history. Let’s try to identify what changed, between 1200-1500 or so. So instead of trying to figure out what “ended” the Middle Ages, These “in between” years didn’t have any quality of their own-they simply lay in the middle. Once they began to identify this re-awakening, they had to find a name for the years that came between ancient culture itself and the return of ancient culture. In fact, it’s a little bit like saying, “My childhood ended when I started liking spinach,” or “He stopped being President when he got married.” It’s putting two completely different things side by side, and pretending that they are the same.įor one thing, the Renaissance isn’t a historical period, like the Early Modern period it’s an intellectual movement.Īnd for another, the idea of the “Middle Ages” didn’t even exist until historians began talking about the “Renaissance.” In the eighteenth century, scholars increasingly focused on the reawakening of interest in ancient art, ancient philosophy, and ancient literature that began in the 1300s (or later, depending on which eighteenth-century historian you’re reading). Most of us were taught, in history class, that the Middle Ages ended when the Renaissance began. The Middle Ages (the favorite historical period of 9 out of 10 young history students!) is generally thought to occupy the years between the collapse of Rome and the beginning of the Renaissance-between, more or less, 4 AD. There were (and still are) a fair number of Mary/Marie/Marias and Magdalens who would be male, and a fair number of Michaels, Lukes and Pauls who would be female. Girls were often named after their fathers, so they often ended up with “boys” names. People were often named for the saint of the day of their birth/baptism regardless of whether the genders matched. Yes, you can name a male character with a female saint name and vice versa. The name of any saint who was canonized prior to the 8th century anywhere in Europe will probably have a fair number of people named after him or her in any Catholic (or formerly Catholic) European country. Irish and Welsh spellings of the names differ significantly from the ones on the Roman calendar, so do little bit of research if you are setting your novel in one of those countries. The canon lists have a variety of differences for regions, so if your novel takes place in England, you probably won’t have a Polish saint name. Just check the hagiography (saint’s biography) to make sure the saint was canonized prior to the date of your story, and you can safely use it. Another good source for Medieval names: any of the variety of Catholic websites that list saints of the day with biographies.
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